"Are you going to make 'em read when he's going or coming?" Red explained.
"I hadn't thought of that," Johnnie Green replied. "But I guess going would be better. Then if he stands up you can read 'em just the same, without any trouble."
So Johnnie kneeled down beside Timothy Turtle. It took him some time to decide just where he would carve his initials on Timothy's shell. And he had about decided that the best place to put his mark on Mr. Turtle's back would be exactly in the middle of it, when he cried all at once, "Look, Red! Look!"
"Whassamatter?" the red-haired boy wanted to know.
"This is the queerest thing I ever heard of!" Johnnie exclaimed. "Here are my initials already cut!"
Red could not believe him, until he had[p. 78] peered at Timothy's shell himself. And then he saw that what Johnnie had said was true.
"There's a date, too," Johnnie pointed out. And he read it aloud. "That's more'n thirty years ago," he declared.
But the red-haired boy laughed boisterously.
"Shucks!" he jeered. "Somebody's been playin' a joke on you. Somebody knew you were lookin' for this old turtle and put your initials and that old date on him just to puzzle you."
Johnnie Green didn't know exactly what to think. But probably he was no more upset than was Timothy Turtle, who was not having a good time at all.